Since it’s Thanksgiving Day today here in the United States, I wanted to express thanks to all my faithful subscribers. Once again, I do appreciate everyone remaining subscribed even though my posting has been pretty much non-existent. Keep hangin in there, because things will pick back up again soon!

Also in recognition of Thanksgiving, I want to express thanks to all my twitter followers, Myspace friends and facebook friends. I’m also thankful for the fans of Wes Sp8, the fans of Mother/Father and the fans of Radical Notion. And of course I’m thankful for my friends and family offline as well…

One last thing: for those who are into getting deals on Black Friday, you might be interested to know that at Radical Notion Digital we do Black Friday deals every day. If you would you rather shop somewhere you’re more familiar with, then our Wes Sp8 CD Baby page and our Wes Sp8 iTunes page have some pretty good deals too. Mother/Father music is not available to purchase yet, but will be soon.

Hope today feels like a holiday no matter where you live…

Turkey photo by xybermatthew and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Today Seth Godin published a blog post which offers a download of his Free Tribes eBook. The exciting part for me is that an essay I wrote got included in the eBook. The Tribes eBook is the free companion to his new book Tribes. I’m thrilled to have my words distributed along side so many creative thinkers and intellectuals. Download a copy for yourself, and take a few minutes to look at all the truly unique ideas that are in this eBook.

It’s been a little over a month since I posted on producer notes. I’ve been tending a lot of irons in the fire lately, and all my projects have kept me from being as consistent as I would like to be around here. However, as there is a link in the Tribes eBook to producer notes, I wanted to have something current so that this site does not look like a dead end to any potential new visitors.

If you are a new visitor via the link from the Tribes eBook, I appreciate you stopping by producer notes. The purpose of this blog is to serve as a conduit to share my ideas for recording music, as well as discussing ideas for new business models which are relevant to record producers and engineers attempting to keep up with the evolution curve of the music industry. If you feel like this blog is for you, please spend some time looking around. I hope you find some useful information.

Those who are subscribers/regular readers of producer notes, I appreciate you staying subscribed during this time of inconsistency. I hope to once again regularly post content to producer notes in the near future, once I am able to complete the projects on my radar screen at the moment.

In the meantime whether you’re a new face or regular around here, feel free to contact me at stinson[at]producernotes[dot]com. I’d love to talk to you.

Well Next Big Nashville 2008 has officially kicked off. I attended two very inspiring discussion panels this morning. The first was titled The New Nashville: What Do We Need? The panelists discussed ideas for how to garner more awareness for Nashville as a rock music town. The discussion sparked a slew of ideas that I can’t wait to explore. The title for the second panel was Psychology and the Art of Artist Management. I soaked in a tremendous amount of knowledge from each panelist, who all have built a high caliber reputation beside the artists they work with.

Next on my list of events to attend is the Mother/Father set at Mercy Lounge tonite at 11pm. www.myspace.com/thisismotherfather. If you are planning to attend this show tonite, I hope that we can connect. Come up and say, “Hi.” I’ll be the guy dressed in all black operating a video camera (if the venue will let me).

I’ve got my personal schedule for the events I plan on attending posted here: nbn08.sched.org/stsn. I’ll also be posting my whereabouts and other various NBN riffs via my Twitter page. Follow me at twitter.com/stsn, for those interested. If you are going to be at any one of these events I’d love to connect with you, so again, please do come up and say, “Hi.”

I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend. Hope to see you out there!

BTW-Feel free to leave your schedule, whether linked or typed out, in the comments section below…

photo by wilhei55

This is my fiftieth post to producer notes. I want to use this moment to retrace the genesis and initial growth of this blog. I also want to recapitulate the purpose of this blog, and fill you in on what I plan for the future of this blog.

The Creation of a Blog
July 10th will be the year mark for this blog. When I decided to begin blogging, I started out on www.wordpress.com. My main motivation for starting a blog at the time was simply because I was interested in taking up a new hobby. I had become interested in writing, and I felt like I needed my own platform to express my thoughts. After becoming inspired by Glenn Reynolds’ blog [pajamasmedia.com/instapundit] and book, An Army Of Davids [An Army Of Davids on Amazon], starting my own blog was something I really wanted for myself.

After about five months worth of studying the proper way to blog, and writing to find a voice, I decided to migrate over to my own domain on a dedicated wordpress installation. It was at this point that I branded my blog with the producer notes title. I also began to fine tune my topics so that I could more closely target my audience; people who wish to learn how to become producers and engineers.

The Success of a Blog
For being a part-time blogger, I feel that producer notes has been a success so far. Throughout the last fifty posts, I have achieved the goals I wanted for this blog. I have learned a lot about blogging and building web sites, and I have been able to create the outlet I wanted to express myself. I have also been able to create a platform which allows me to promote my production work, and I have gained a modest following of readers and subscribers interested in what I do and the information I offer.

I will continue to set new goals for this blog. There is still plenty of room to learn about what I am doing, and many specific goals I want to achieve. I am continuously learning more about blogging and running web sites every day. I expect that producer notes will continue to be a successful project for me, as I craft this blog through putting to practice what I learn.

The Future of a Blog
There are two final things I want to say in this post. First, is that I am becoming very busy. Radical Notion continues to grow, and along the way it requires us to invest more attention in planning and developing. Additionally, I am going to be working on a couple of records, which will probably take the rest of the summer to complete. Obviously this will take me away from other tasks, such as writing for this blog. I have been trying very hard to have a post prepared every week, but since I am a part-time blogger there are other projects that must take priority from time to time. As we continue in our growth phase with Radical Notion, and I begin these projects in the studio, I am going to have to scale down my posting schedule on producer notes. I still plan to periodically contribute to this blog, but for the next several months I will be off my once-a-week posting schedule, making my appearances here a lot less predictable.

Second is that I would like you to help me make producer notes better. Is there anything you would like to see done differently? Any topics relating to producing and engineering that you would like to know more about? Have the topics I covered so far been informative, or are they too basic? I want to guarantee that I am covering topics which are relevant and educational to those seeking to become producers and engineers. So if you have suggestions for changes I could make to anything about this site, leave a comment or send an email to stinson[At]producernotes[DOT]com.

I look forward to hearing from you. And remember that I’m not going away, I’m just going to be posting less frequently. Thanks for being loyal readers/subscribers.

The photo in this post is licensed under a creative commons license.

The following is a post that was originally published on 4/28/08. Due to a data loss issue producer notes suffered yesterday morning, I am republishing it today. It is the first of four posts that will be republished in an attempt to retain the integrity of producer notes.

This past weekend I went to my friend Aron Wright’s show at Portland Brew here in Nashville. It was a fantastic show featuring the intimate sounds of Aron Wright, McClain and Robby Hecht.

Visit them each on the web:
Aron Wright [www.myspace.com/aronwright]
McClain [wwwmyspace.com/tfmcclain]
Robby Hecht [www.myspace.com/robbyhecht]

But I really wanted to tell you this morning about something remarkable Aron did for the show. He set up a live video broadcast over the internet using a service called UstreamTV [www.ustream.tv] This is something that I have been planning on incorporating into the shows that Radical Notion promotes. I knew I would be able to set up a live broadcast of audio, but being able to offer video was something that I was still brainstorming. So it goes without saying that I’m very fired up about this service. Look for our live broadcasts in the near future here: [www.ustream.tv/RadicalNotion]

Check out Aron Wright’s broadcasts here: [www.ustream.tv/aronwright]

Anyone else already using UstreamTV? I would love to see what you are up to. Post links to your broadcasts in the comments below.

Yesterday morning producer notes hit some turbulence, and didn’t quite make it through without sustaining some damage. Long story short, all the comments throughout the entire blog were erased. I have no idea what caused this, but I am still pretty amateur when it comes to maintaining web sites.

Lately I have been getting hit pretty hard by spam bots. I have my preferences set to moderate all comments, and I usually bulk moderate everything on posting days. Sometimes spam comments can build up quite a bit by the time I get around to moderating anything.

Yesterday morning I posted a new post, and then began moderating the comments. I selected the “Awaiting Moderation” tab in the Wordpress admin panel. I know for a fact that I was only moderating comments that had not previously been approved. I even went over each comment to double check that I was not marking one as spam that shouldn’t be. I marked around 120 comments as spam. When I was finished there were no comments under any category. Not under the “Show All Comments” tab, the “Awaiting Moderation” tab or the “Approved” tab. Everything had been erased!

I figured the best thing to do would be to restore my previous database backup, but the most recent backup I had was a month old. Restoring it meant that I was going to lose 5 posts. I decided to do it. Once I got the old database loaded up, I noticed that some things were out of sync with the blog vs. the feed, and there were a few other broken features. At this point I felt that I was losing too much, and trying to save a few comments was just not worth it. After all, my blog is still pretty new, and I really didn’t have that many comments (only five). So I “un-did” the backup, and decided that I would just lose the comments.

But this morning as I woke up I was not happy with this decision. I felt I really needed those comments even if there were only five. Having comments on your blog is an integral part of what gives a blog its value. I highly value the interaction of people, and joining together as a team to build something. It took a lot of dedication to get those comments, and I distinctly appreciate each person that took the time to stop by and interact on producer notes. To just let that go like it meant nothing would have been a disrespectful waste.

So after much flip-flopping on the issue, I have decided to restore the month old database, regardless of what content I lose or what features break. I do have the five lost posts on file which I plan on republishing one at a time over the rest of the week. Any features that end up breaking I feel confident will be fixable. And if the RSS feed gets out of sync, worse things have happened. The important thing is that I have my comments back. Well, most of the comments. Unfortunately I was not able to recover one comment, and I’m sorry for that.

Sorry if my mishap has caused any confusion. Thank you again for being subscribed and/or loyal readers. In the end I have learned a few things from this incident. The first of which is that I’m going to vamp up my backup routine to a more frequent schedule.

You should begin to see four of the five lost posts start to reappear, starting today with UstreamTV and following with:

• eSession on 6/4/08
• Jonathan Harms’ New Blog on 6/5/08
• 5 Tips to Make Your Recording Sessions More Efficient on 6/6/08

I’m going to leave one post, Leave of Absence, unpublished as it is no longer relevant.

Thanks to those who have participated in the interactivity of producer notes.

Photo in this post taken by a little azorean and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

Here are some blogs/articles I have stumbled across over the past couple of weeks. I subscribed up to these blogs, and I suggest you do to. It’s priceless information written by some of the best music business thinkers/marketers.

[http://sivers.org] Derek Sivers’ blog, the founder of CD Baby

[http://newmusicstrategies.com/?p=508] Came across this from a link on Derek Sivers’ blog. The article is written by Andrew Dubber as a post on his blog. Great perpective on piracy vs. sharing, and how it really fits into our industry.

[www.openp2p.com/lpt/a/3015] Another great article about piracy that Derek Sivers linked to on his blog. This one is written by Tim O’Reilly.

[www.musicthinktank.com/blog] A great new music business blog that has multiple authors all sharing very thought provoking ideas, and building a community around those thoughts. Authors include: Andrew Dubber, Derek Sivers, Bob Baker, Ariel Hyatt and plenty of others.

[www.futureofmusicbook.com] I googed Paul McGuiness because I wanted to read the speach he made at Cannes. I ended up at Dave Kusek’s blog. He and Gerd Leonhard co-wrote the book [The Future Of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution] Oh yeah, and he posted a [full transcript] of the Paul McGuiness speech.

The guys over at [www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog] are running the “Young Entrepreneur Challenge.” It’s an interview of 20 questions that you answer on your own blog, and then comment with a link back to your post. They are giving away an iPod, but I’m just doing this for fun. I have never participated in something like this before, so I thought I should give it a shot. Hope you enjoy my answers.

1. What ignited the spark in you to start a new business venture or to make significant changes in an existing business?
I have been in love with music all my life. I knew at a very young age that I needed to be in the music industry. I got interested in the studio because I wanted to have full control over the sound of the music I made. Over time as I became more and more involved in the music industry, I saw how hard it was to get your work recognized. I thought to myself, “if I want to produce a hit record, then I need to make the records I produce a hit.” I started Radical Notion (independent media) so that I could produce records and then promote them instead of leaving it up to someone else.

2. What is your definition of success and has your company achieved it?
My definition of success is to not give up. Thomas Edison once spoke about failure saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” When you set out to do something new; to cover new ground in your life, you are going to learn a lot of new and valuable life lessons. You are going to fall on your face a few times. Success is defined in how you react to falling down. Do you give up? Then you fail. Do you get back up, dust yourself off and try another apporach? Then you have been successful. Radical Notion is still here. In my book that makes us a success.

3. To what do you attribute your company’s recent achievements?
Many things. Patience, perseverance, passion, community, positive thinking, taking the time to pay attention to detail and do things right, communication, our fans/audience, trust, honesty.

4. How important have good employees and team members been to your success?
Integral. You cannot have success unless you form a strong team with your business partners, and communicate. You all have to share a common goal/vision. My business partner, Jonathan Harms, is a team player. I am a team player. The artists we manage are team players. We all share a common dream. We are a true family.

5. What three pieces of advice would you give to high school or college students who want to become entrepreneurs?

1. Be a mavrick. There is no right or wrong. Learn the fundamentals of your trade, but be willing to throw the “book smarts” out the window. Be wise. Just because a text book says to do something a certain way does not always mean that is the only way. Often times the people who made a big splash did not do so because they colored inside the lines all the time.
2. Have passion. Jonathan passed on some great advice to me over the weekend. It came from his mom, “Don’t do something that keeps you alive, do something that MAKES you alive.”
3. Here is something I have learned the hard way: Don’t miss out on life because you were too busy working. Yes, you do want to pick a vocation that makes the line that divides work and play very blurry, but too much of any one thing is a bad thing. Don’t neglect spending time with those you love. You will only get burned out, which will suck all the enjoyment out of something that was once fun.

6. What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?
I have been known to talk too much. I learned to be confident, and say exactly what I mean. If you believe in yourself, then who cares if someone else doesn’t?

I have made the mistake of waiting too late to do something because I didn’t know every little detail about how to do what I wanted to do. I figured out that I should be “learning by doing.” You don’t have to be an expert in an area to get started. You don’t have to be an expert to have a good idea. Just do it. If you don’t, someone else will.

I have made the mistake of talking without thinking. I learned to “look before you leap.”

7. Describe/outline your typical day.
Wake up at 6:00 am, make coffee or tea (depends on my mood). Sit at my desk with the computer off. Relax/think/meditate for about 30min to an hour. Write out some ideas. Read for a bit. At around 7:30 or 8:00 am I begin to consult my lists. I prioritize my projects, and develop an idea for what I will get done for the day. I turn on my computer and check my email. If it is a Monday I post an article on my blog. Around 8:15 or so I jump in the shower. After my shower I tidy the apartment. If it happens to be a recording day, then around 9:00 am I head to the studio. I will then spend the day recording, mixing, or producing music. If it is not a recording day, then around 9:00 am Jonathan shows up. We sit and talk over some coffee about where we are regarding our current business affairs. We go over our objectives for the day, and then set out to promote, book shows for, market or generally manage the careers of the artists we represent. From there it depends. I could be in the studio all nite, my business partner and I may have to go to a show and sell merchandise or we may not have anything planned. Overall, my days are pretty unpredictable and wild.

8. Where did your organization’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it?
Our funding/capital has come partly from some money we had saved up, and partly from our loving families who support everything we do. I cannot express how much I appreciate them! They believe in us wholehartedly.

9. What stops you from throwing in the towel and giving up when you are frustrated?
My passion. I am so passionate about what I do, and it is such a part of me that I cannot even imagine doing anything else. It is a dream come true. There is no defining line between what I do for fun, and what I do as work. Setting that perspective makes it illogical to walk away from something I have so much fun being a part of. It does not matter what you choose to do with your life-you will feel frustration from time to time no matter what. It would be silly to just walk away from something because you got frustrated for a moment.

10. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Yes. Perspective, passion, patience, wisdom. People who are innovators, adapters, and opportunity seekers.

11. Who has influenced you most and been your greatest inspiration?
This is a very hard question for me to answer. First I have to mention my parents. They taught me so many priceless things. To pay it full tribute would be impossible. Outside of that, it would have to be Jacquire King, Butch Vig, Billy Corgan, Thurston Moore, Robert Smith, Roger Moutenot, Terry McBride, Steve Jobs, Mark Montgomery, Seth Godin.

12. What book has inspired you the most?
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

13. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
So far we have done the majority of our marketing simply by making a presence online. We are utilizing social media such as myspace, facebook and blogs. We are in a startup phase of business right now, and doing most of our marketing through a grassroots word of mouth approach.

14. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Dreamist

15. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
echo music

16. How do you achieve balance in your life? Or do You?
This is honestly a daily struggle for me. It’s very difficult for me to achieve balance working in the entertainment industry. It is one of the hardest industries to work in. Entertainment never sleeps. Entertainment never stops.

17. Where do you see yourself and your business in 5 years? 10 years?
In 5 years I see us as a profitable artist management/publishing/recording company. In 10 years I see us moving into other media circles in addition to music such as, video and web technology.

18. What’s your exit strategy?
There is not one. That is not an option.

19. If we could introduce you to anyone, who would it be and why? (you never know who we know!)
Terry McBride. I feel he has achieved what I am setting out to achieve. I would love to sit and have coffee with him for an hour or two. I could learn so much.

20. If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?
Are you happy?

You can now buy Wes Sp8’s Please EP on CD Baby and iTunes. Check it out at the links below.

On CD Baby:

On iTunes:

Quarter one of 2008 has come to an end. I met every goal I set out on, specifically getting Radical Notion off the ground. I feel RN has covered a lot of ground in a short time, but that it is only a drop in the bucket when thinking about the road ahead. That’s a great feeling to me, because if I’m excited about what has happened so far, what lies ahead is going to be unbelievable. The most exciting part of it all, is that I could not have met any single goal without you. That means you responded positively, and I thank you tremendously for that.

So far in 2008 Radical Notion and our artists have made a presence on the web, made some appearances on the radio, thrown some awesome parties, and released two EPs-all of which you participated in, and contributed to the success of. Just as the calendar ticks over to the next phase of ‘08, I’m happy to say that the next chapter in the beginning of Radical Notion is already being written.

I’m excited about two new websites within the umbrella of the RN family:

• The Radical Notion Digital Store
• Street Corner Champs Official Site

The Radical Notion Digital Store is our new online store where we will offer all of our media content straight from our hands to yours. Our first release through the store is Street Corner Champs’ debut self titled EP. The EP comes as a download in three different versions. All of which are totally uninhibited by the control of any DRM. We even offer a version for free. The Radical Notion Digital Store is just another way we can connect with you. It allows us to cut out any middle man, and offer everything we do in a way that is convenient for you. Having our own method of distribution keeps anyone from putting a barrier of price, availability, DRM, communication or any other control point between us and you. We look forward to releasing more media through this store in the near future, the way you want it. [www.radicalnotion.net/store]

Street Corner Champs’ Official Site is going to serve as the central hub for all information, news and entertainment for the band. We plan on constantly updating the content of the site, and adding new features regularly. Make sure you stay up to date with this site, because you don’t want to miss out on anything. We may make exclusive announcements, run special promotions, or make limited releases through this website. [www.streetcornerchamps.com]

I can’t wait for what is next at Radical Notion. This is the best time of my life because everything I have desired to do is becoming a reality. We are sitting at the drawing board right now brainstorming our plans for our next move. We are in full throttle, inspired, and working hard to continue what we started. I hope to see you at all the parties that are going to happen throughout the rest of the year.

Together We Create Emotion…